Create

Design Project Gallery

Project Search

Search projects by keyword, program, course, or submission year.

Department or Center

Course

Year

If you are human, leave this field blank.

CryoExtract: Novel Apparatus for Streamlining Tissue Retrieval in Lung Cryobiopsy

Program: Biomedical Engineering
Course: EN.580.X12 BME Design Team
Year: 2025

Project Description:

Approximately 100,000 people are diagnosed with interstitial lung diseases (ILD) annually in the U.S., and lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Together, these burdens highlight the urgent need to innovate for improved pulmonary diagnostics. Lung cryobiopsy is a promising technique that offers the best of both forceps and surgical biopsies, low complication and high-quality samples, without the trade-offs. A challenge slowing widespread adoption of cryobiopsy is the frustrating process of removing extracted tissue from the cryoprobe tip. Current methods include aggressive shaking of the probe in formalin solution and scraping with a small hand-held tool, where both are inefficient and time-consuming according to pulmonologists. The ICOR is a novel device that easily integrates into the existing workflow, adding negligible cost while improving speed and convenience. By overcoming this hurdle, ICOR helps cryobiopsy advance toward becoming the gold standard in pulmonary disease diagnostics.